I Touch Myself
by JazzyLittleMonster
Summary: AngelCollins. Four months after Angel died. Based on 2 lines from a Divinyls song, which will be evident when you read it! Deatils may vary slightly from the timeline, eg Roger not scurrying off to Santa Fe. Hope you enjoy it, feel free to review.


I Touch Myself

**I don't want anybody else.****  
When I think about you, I touch myself.**

Fisting his cock, he pushes his face into the pillow that still smells of her. Tangles, buries himself in her blankets, not changed in the four months it's been since she left. He doesn't know if it really is her smell still there, or if he's imagining it. But nevertheless, she comes to him in beautiful technicolor flashes, as he strokes steadily, trying to imitate her soft, light hands, her gentle rhythm.  
The elegant line of her neck, the smooth sweep of her belly, so soft, her pert ass, sugar lips, slightly parted - panting - swollen in passion, a delicate ankle. Honey brown eyes gaze brazenly up through heavy lids; smoldering with innocence and sex and love. Her smile. Radiant. She dances before him, just out of reach.  
"Baby" he whispers, face still buried in the pillow, "Don't tease me." And he can almost feel her lips brush the back of his neck.  
It's painful, but at the same time it's good because he loves, needs to feel close to her. It's a break from the constant ache of grieving. Remembering her, them. Togetherness. Despite his wisdom, both book smarts and worldly knowledge, he'd truly believed that together they were invincible. The void she left, the hollowness, that tight desperation, never leaves him completely, but in these pseudo-moments it's dulled, like the radio being turned down to watch the fuzzy pictures flicker on the TV screen in his head. Merely a millionth of the pleasure of the actual experience, the intimacy, the sharing, the original moment. But comfort nonetheless.

It's also a necessity, to release. He'd promised his baby as she lay dying in his arms that he'd be faithful for as long as he lived, whether that was a month or a decade or more. She'd protested that she wanted him to make the very most of whatever time he had left, but he'd insisted he wouldn't, _couldn't_ do that with someone else.  
_Never, baby, not after you._  
She'd giggled hoarsely, a broken echo of the melodic chuckle that used to fill a room, and he'd seen that she was touched by the declaration. He felt privileged that not even Mimi saw the fragile little boy beneath the strong, carefree girl who put everyone else's needs before her own for the sake of love: spreading it, earning it, keeping it, which had sadly proved harder for Angel in the past. His grateful smile, the hope shining in his eyes, had twisted Collins' heart. He'd never understood why the most precious and wonderful person in the world felt undeserving of love and commitment. He'd kissed the hand he'd been holding for the past few days and nights and stroked his baby's hair, never breaking eye contact, until he fully took in and accepted Collins' decision, making soft circles on his palm with his thumb, one of the only mobile parts of his body.  
_Okay, honey._  
And seamlessly the vulnerable boy had become his playful Angel girl again, winking a twinkling eye mischievously.  
_And I'll be saving myself for you too, honey. Don't you worry, I won't let any of the other Angels have their wicked way with me._

He wonders if she is waiting.  
There's always temptation, in the middle of the night when no matter how much he calls, she won't come to him, when all he wants is a pair of arms to hold him, to hold him back from the brink of crazy.

**I don't want anybody else.**

He knew he never would. He'd be damned before he broke a promise to his girl. His sweet sweet Angel girl. Besides, he mused, it would be pointless. He doubted he'd even feel the arms, a body, kisses, that weren't hers.  
He'd started spending most nights with Mark and Roger. At first he often woke to find one or both of them in bed with him, limbs tangled on the small mattress, the combination of body heat uncomfortably stuffy, yet comforting. Old friends, smiling sheepishly as his blurry eyes burned raw when he rubbed them with tired fists.  
_'M sorry guys, bad night again?  
Yeah, you were shouting.  
S'okay though, man, we're here._  
He couldn't have asked for more support from them, all of them, they'd been really brilliant. Mo' had tried to help too, in her own way, when she'd set up a date for him with one of Joanne's lawyer friends.  
_Collins, baby, he's perfect! Sweet, charming, handsome; just like you sweetie...  
He's not Angel.  
Honey, you need to get on with your life, Angel would want that.  
There are other ways of makin' the most of life that don't involve cheatin', Mo'.  
Collins, I love Angel too, but she's dead. You can't cheat on a dead pers..  
Mo', no offense honey, but I don' reckon you're gonna gimme the best advice on advice on adultery, y'know?_  
She'd frozen like she'd been slapped, and then turned on her heel and clip-clopped away in her leather boots, muttering dramatically. He'd only lashed out and said it because her words had set fear boiling in him, rising like a sick feeling in the back of his throat. Life without Angel was incomprehensible. Even if it was now reduced to just honoring her memory, she deserved it, and he wanted to do it. He didn't want to move on, ever. Didn't want to forget her. Couldn't. He'd lashed out because he was confused, and angry that no-one could understand what it was to love someone so much that everything else in the world becomes insignificant.

**I don't want anybody else. Oh no, oh no, oh no.**

He'd later regretted being so harsh with Mo' It wasn't in his nature to lash out. The next evening though, when he'd seen her at the Life, she hadn't mentioned it, and had kissed his cheek, giving him a big hug and a wink. Now more than ever, he's truly thankful for good friends. One of life's blessings.

Angel.

He's still stroking, squeezing, massaging his hard cock, but his hands are too big and clumsy and calloused and nothing like her delicate little clever ones. He used to be good at this; all through college and for many years afterward. Well, he'd started in high school, but he couldn't really call those fumblings more than practice. Even when he began having sexual partners, this left hand, now working below the covers, had been sufficient, and often preferable. But once he'd been with Angel, felt her hands on him, her mouth her sweet warm mouth, completeness he didn't know existed...He feels the tears coming, in time with his orgasm. Frustration, despair, loneliness, something else unexpressed...he was never the type to cry a lot, even when he got upset. Angel only ever saw him properly cry twice - the first time, pinning her against the outside wall of a grungy downtown club with his hips, all heat and tongues and lips, when he bent his head to nibble just below her earlobe and found her first lesion; the second near Tompkins Square Park when he was drunk and stoned off his face and lost one of his favorite pair of black explorer boots to a homeless guy - But since she's been gone it happens so often he barely notices whether he's crying or not. He squeezes his eyes shut, physically straining to be closer to her. The last flood of images come as shuddering waves of completion wash over him. Feather light kisses down his spine, her soft rubbery nipple between his teeth with the perfumey smell of her smooth chest tickling his nose which brushes against it in the process, the divine salty-sweet taste of her cock when she comes in his hand and scoops it up with two, sometimes three elegant fingers for him to lick clean.  
_Yes baby, yes, love you baby, always, want you sexy girl, need you so bad, please._  
Eloquent fucking had never been their thing. Passion like theirs didn't allow coherent thought.  
The feverish half-noises he's been making quieten to silence.

**I don't want anybody else.**

With his free hand, which was fisted in the pillow, he reaches across to the worn and crumpled picture on the bedside cabinet. If it's possible to fade a picture by looking at it too much and for too long, he thinks he's done it. Angel, sitting in his lap, leaning into his chest with her head turned up towards his face, one of his hands resting comfortably on her hip, the other tilting his beer so she can take a sip, and they are both eyes dancing and mouths half-open; laughing at Maureen in the corner of the frame.  
He lets the image embed itself before he closes his eyes and attempts to sleep, kissing her face and holding the picture tightly to his heart with the clean hand. It will be more crumpled in the morning.  
G'night baby, love you. Love you so much. Always will.  
He falls asleep both hoping and doubting that tonight will be the night he stops wanting her arms. But as painful as it is, he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
